The Lunar Yellow Peril

So, the Chinese government released a white paper outlining its space plans the other day, and it’s apparently driven some pundits loony tunes.

In a post titled “The Obama Legacy: Ceding Earth To Islamists And The Moon To China,” Tammy Bruce was quick to bash the Obama administration over what she perceives as its feckless space policy. Over at IBD, Andrew Malcolm similarly blames the Obama administration for what he declares a “crippling” of the U.S. space program (apparently unaware that the real culprit is the Congress, on a bi-partisan basis, in its pursuit of pork).

But the latest and most egregious in its misunderstanding of both China’s space policy and ours comes from conservative commentator Cal Thomas, who manages to get at least two things wrong in his opening paragraph:

President Obama’s decision in 2010 to cut NASA’s budget and abandon the Constellation program, established by the Bush administration, which was charged with returning Americans to the moon by 2020 and creating an “extended human presence on the moon,” has created a vacuum, which China will attempt to fill.

First, the administration actually proposed an increase in NASA’s budget. And while the original Vision for Space Exploration had a goal of a lunar return by 2020, one had to be delusional to believe that Constellation, as it was being implemented, had a prayer of doing so. In 2009, the Augustine Panel essentially said as much, which is why the administration came up with a new policy that, while not explicitly declaring a lunar return as a goal, would have made it possible sooner in a much more affordable way. Also, the notion that the Chinese are doing this only because we don’t seem to be makes no sense. Does he really think that these plans only arose from an absence of our own, and that they wouldn’t be pursuing the moon if we were?

The second paragraph, in describing China’s ambitions, is worse:

China has announced an ambitious five-year plan that includes the launch of space laboratories, a manned spaceship to the moon and the creation of its own global satellite navigation system that will almost certainly be used for military purposes.

He implies that the Chinese will be sending men to the moon within five years, but that’s not what the white paper says:

China will push forward human spaceflight projects and make new technological breakthroughs, creating a foundation for future human spaceflight.

It will launch the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spaceships and achieve unmanned or manned rendezvous and docking with the in-orbit Tiangong-1 vehicle.

China will launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and space freighters; make breakthroughs in and master space station key technologies, including astronauts’ medium-term stay, regenerative life support and propellant refueling; conduct space applications to a certain extent and make technological preparations for the construction of space stations.

China will conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing.

That’s it. It will “conduct studies on the preliminary plan.” Or perhaps it will contemplate the possibility of conducting such studies. Either way, no taikonauts are going to be making footprints on the moon any time soon.

While changing the organisations’s mission away from space exploration towards global warming propaganda and making muslims feel good about themselves.

NASA’s budget for what’s always been and should always be its primary mission: providing access to space and related research and engineering, was slashed, the US manned space program essentially abandoned (I don’t think for a moment that SpaceX will get the required certification to start manned flights, and ditto for anyone else trying, for political reasons if anything).

Well, tell us then, does it contain funding for the development (I mean the ACTUAL development, not just a conceptual design) of a heavy-lift launch system to replace the Ares V that Obama cancelled?

Has the CEV, along with the ARES I, actually been put back in?

If not the Ares I, have we at least budgeted for SpaceX to develop it’s MANNED space capsule, so we can put humans into low Earth orbit again? (I know SpaceX has proposed this, but has NASA actually budgeted money for them to go ahead?)

Has Obama put back in the lunar lander? (The reason I ask that is because you said, “…the administration came up with a new policy that, while not explicitly declaring a lunar return as a goal, whould have made it possible sooner in a much more affordable way.” Considering how long it would take to develop a new lunar lander from scratch, what is the point of putting that sentence in when you know full well that we aren’t going back to the moon in the foreseeable future with Obama’s budget plans?

Really, Mr. Simberg, is there anything at all in the NASA budget to indicate that we are actually going anywhere –to the Moon? to an asteroid? to Mars? …even back into low Earth orbit with the budget you’ve seen?

Well, tell us then, does it contain funding for the development (I mean the ACTUAL development, not just a conceptual design) of a heavy-lift launch system to replace the Ares V that Obama cancelled?

Unfortunately, yes.

Has the CEV, along with the ARES I, actually been put back in?

Orion continue to waste money, yes. Fortunately, Ares I remains dead.

If not the Ares I, have we at least budgeted for SpaceX to develop it’s MANNED space capsule, so we can put humans into low Earth orbit again? (I know SpaceX has proposed this, but has NASA actually budgeted money for them to go ahead?)

Yes, but not enough, because Congress insists on wasting billions on an unneeded heavy lifter.

Has Obama put back in the lunar lander? (The reason I ask that is because you said, “…the administration came up with a new policy that, while not explicitly declaring a lunar return as a goal, whould have made it possible sooner in a much more affordable way.” Considering how long it would take to develop a new lunar lander from scratch, what is the point of putting that sentence in when you know full well that we aren’t going back to the moon in the foreseeable future with Obama’s budget plans?

There never was a lunar lander in the budget. That wasn’t due to even start to be developed for several years. With the new plan, we can start the lander sooner, and it can be more efficient, using in-space refueling, assuming that Congress adequately funds the technology development (something they don’t seem inclined to do).

Really, Mr. Simberg, is there anything at all in the NASA budget to indicate that we are actually going anywhere –to the Moon? to an asteroid? to Mars? …even back into low Earth orbit with the budget you’ve seen?

There is NOTHING on the Moon that we should fear the Chinese getting access to.

This is another example of how some folks can’t seem to rid themselves of the Cold War mindset.

The entire reason the U.S. went all-out with the space program was to find a peaceful way to compete in missile strength with the Soviets–to show the world that “Our rockets are better than their rockets.” We landed men on the moon simply to demonstrate the power of our Saturn V rocket, not to build a military base there.

But unlike the Sputnik event, the Chinese aren’t trying to stick it to us over missile strength. They’re sticking it to us by flooding our market with consumer goods.

If the Chinese want to land men on the Moon, it’s no skin off our nose.

There is a legitimate way to exploit space that we should be seriously investigating: Solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Being able to beam gigawatts of solar power back to America 24 hours a day (just like DirecTV and Dish Network beam back TV programs) would be a lot more useful than the Moon.

How? The Moon is the high-ground. A lunar base can see anything coming from Earth for 3 days. Actually, the danger isn’t so much to the ground as to our assets in orbit. A couple of hundred pounds of gravel could wipe out every U.S. satellite.

While a couple hundred pounds of gravel in space would be bad, I take it you’ve never studied orbital mechanics. There are already thousands of pieces of space junk in orbit around the Earth. If you go down to the size of gravel, the number of pieces is likely in the tens of thousands. The current space junk has managed to collide with one US satellite (a civilian Iridium communications satellite) in the past few decades. Compared to the volume of space, satellites are quite small. Their orbits range from about 100 miles to over 23,000 miles above the surface and they’re in many different orbital planes. It’s hard to hit a satellite even when you’re trying with guidance systems and the whole works. It’d be very difficult to hit a bunch of satellites with unguided gravel, even in GEO.

To be more correct, a couple hundred pounds of gravel in an exactly opposite geosynchronous orbit (i.e. going exactly the other way around the earth), so the dozens of communication sats would be punched full of holes. (no I don’t know the technical term for that orbit, or the velocity of the impacts. I leave that for the technical folk)

A hostile moon base with a mass driver could take out all the satellites. However, in your “Couple of hundred pounds of gravel” scenario, it would also prevent any kind of resupplying rockets from earth. It’s MAD all over again.

I’m not worried about a Chinese City on the moon at all. I wish them luck in their endeavours, and hope they can pull this off with a minimum of casualties.

To be more correct, a couple hundred pounds of gravel in an exactly opposite geosynchronous orbit (i.e. going exactly the other way around the earth), so the dozens of communication sats would be punched full of holes. (no I don’t know the technical term for that orbit, or the velocity of the impacts. I leave that for the technical folk)

I first read about that scenario in an Omni magazine article back in the early 1980s. However, most satellites in GEO actually have an orbital inclination greater than 0, meaning they aren’t perfectly aligned around the equator. If the inclination is greater than zero, then the satellites orbit takes it above and below the equator every 24 hours. A one degree inclination at GEO distances means the object moves about 400 miles north and south of the equatorial plane every revolution. Some GEO satellites have inclinations of several degrees. The chances of a mass of gravel traveling in a retrograde orbit just happening to be in the right place at the right time are pretty small. If you want to have a real probability of hitting things in GEO, you need a guided impact vehicle for each target.

Suspicion or fear of China’s motives or intentions is not “Cold War mindset.” It is a universal and permanent aspect of human nature. It has survival value. In evolution a paranoid suspicion of “others” is beneficial to the species, at least in terms of survival.
Regarding your comment about the Chinese “flooding” the American market with their products, of course they do. We try to do the same. The American consumer, a vast, inarticulate, amorphous mass unable to lobby for their interests as unions, manufacturers, producers of other goods can and do, benefit hugely when they can acquire goods at the lowest cost possible.

We are most afraid that the Chinese will find out it is impossible to land a man on the moon, or even venture outside the ionosphere due to intense solar radiation. Low earth orbit is all a living being can endure. The attempt by China will show that the US moon mission was a stage set and make believe.

Of course we’ve been to the moon! Didn’t you see the episode of ‘The Big Bang Theory” When the guys bounced a laser beam off of the reflector that was left
there from the Apollo mission? How much more proof do you need?

I got into an argument with a coworker about this. My ending remark and prediction was “When the next government employee from ANY government gets to the moon, they will be met at the air lock by a Hooters girl with a coupon for ’50% off Moon Jumping Buffalo Wings’” Ok, so I admit that the Hooters girls probably wouldn’t show up for a while but I can see hotel and entertainment companies being there long before we get a military base.

Turning Droopers into Bulgers was mentioned in TMIAHM which is mere SF;
Therefore you must give a detailed proof of your uplifting assertion
with figures, and testimony by certificated experts, to prove your points.

Right. The whole idea is as foolish as…an attack on Pearl Harbor
by the Imperial Japanese Navy back in 1941; Never going to happen.

Say that the Chinese cannot improve on the ability demonstrated the US
to return 5806 kg at 7 miles/sec from the moon to the surface of the earth;
Would _you_ want to be standing at the impact point, chanting ‘It can’t
happen here’ as a protective mantra ?

The Apollo Command Module did have that mass and velocity when it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere upon returning from the moon. It also had a big heat shield and guidance system to keep from burning up like a small meteor. IIRC, temperatures were upwards of 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. You can’t simply throw that mass at the Earth and expect it to survive entry into the atmosphere.

The Apollo spacecraft also took about 3 days to travel from the moon to the Earth. An ICBM can hit any target on Earth in 30-40 minutes.

“In the case of meteors, which enter the atmosphere with speeds as high
as 30 miles per second, the interior of the meteors remains cold, and
the erosion is due, to a large extent, to chipping or cracking of the
suddenly heated surface. For this reason, if the outer surface of the
apparatus were to consist of layers of a very infusible hard substance
with layers of a poor heat conductor between, the surface would not be
eroded to any considerable extent, especially as the velocity of the
apparatus would not be nearly so great as that of the average meteor.”

The Apollo Command Module was designed to decelerate ; A weapon would be designed to deliver its energy to the ground level target: BigBaddaBoom !

The US is unlikely to have the capability to intercept a round from a moon-based meteor gun. Worse its people are unlikely to tolerate _any_
risk of civilian casualties in CONUS.

“In the case of meteors, which enter the atmosphere with speeds as high
as 30 miles per second, the interior of the meteors remains cold, and
the erosion is due, to a large extent, to chipping or cracking of the
suddenly heated surface. For this reason, if the outer surface of the
apparatus were to consist of layers of a very infusible hard substance
with layers of a poor heat conductor between, the surface would not be
eroded to any considerable extent, especially as the velocity of the
apparatus would not be nearly so great as that of the average meteor.”

With all due respect to Dr. Goddard, meteors smaller than about 20 feet in diameter usually burn up in the atmosphere. It’s hard but achievable to make a heat shield survive entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at Apollo velocities, roughly 25,000 MPH. Designing one to do that while maintaining velocity into the denser atmosphere is considerably harder. ICBM warheads prove you can do that at velocities of about 16,000 MPH but heat loads increase rapidly with higher velocities.

The Greatest Generation might have been MAD, but the current one is not;
They will follow the rule that one does not attack another nuclear power
with nuclear weapons; If one cannot win with conventional weapons, one loses.
The Chinese have said this as plainly as possible; They do not believe that
the US will trade Los Angeles for Taiwan, and they are right, we will not.

If the Chinese manage to land a man on the moon and return him to Earth, he’ll be bringing back lots of moon rocks. Such rocks can be carried almost anywhere and are easily concealed, so we’ll never know when a Chinaman might throw one at us. Back in 1972 Nixon traveled to China largely to reassure them that even though we had moon rocks, none of our soldiers would throw one at one of their soldiers. That promise helped defuse Cold-War tensions and has kept the peace for forty years, but there’s no reason to believe the current Chinese government would reciprocate our unilateral non-moon-rock-throwing policy, so the fault will be squarely on the Obama administration if one of our soldiers gets bonked in the head by a moon rock twenty years from now.

Even though we might not talk about him since his embarrassing accident with his pants down and a belt around his neck, his people are still around. Just ask any Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman, or Frenchman who conducts trade in that part of the world.

Also, if China wants to claim the Moon, what exactly would the UN do to stop them? Pass a resolution? The UN is basically worthless (thankfully, otherwise there would be no Israel, given its current leanings).

And of course, once they had a moon base, it would be trivially easy to intercept anything trying to land there.

And lastly, the trouble with new technology regarding the military, is while it might be on the other guy to prove its usefulness, if you are caught off guard it’s disastrous. See the military value of the airplane, or the carrier vs battleship.

My concern is environmental. Without the moon, our climate would be too unstable to support life. I wonder how much mass can be taken from it (mining, nuclear testing or outrigt war) without affecting its orbit or interaction with the earth.

We did a fun experiment as gamers. Had to call up NASA and ask what effect an x megaton on the surface would cause. The consequences planetside were not pretty.

From a pure physics point of view, removing any mass from the moon has an impact on the Earth. However, you’d have to remove a lot of mass to have any effect that could be measured by the most sensitive instruments and many times that amount before it would have any impact on the Earth. Consider the case of gravity-assist maneuvers where a space probe gains velocity by approaching close to a planet. For example, Cassini did gravity assist passes of the Earth and Jupiter before having enough velocity to reach Saturn. It may have also used Venus but I don’t recall offhand. Anyway, as Cassini approached the Earth, it gained velocity. It got that velocity by actually taking a little kinetic energy from the Earth. Did anyone notice?

You’d likely have to remove hundreds of millions of tons from the moon before anyone could even measure a difference. What would anyone do with that mass? Back in the 1970s and 80s, the L5 Society proposed using lunar materials to create huge space habitats capable of holding up to 100,000 people. Even projects as big as that wouldn’t require millions of tons of materials.

Let the Chinese make a claim to the Moon as it will free the US to do the same. Recall that Eisenhower, ABMA and the Navy were all quite relieved that the Soviets sent Sputnik up first as it mooted any Soviet claim to a US violation of Soviet air space when we would — inevitably — launch our own satellites, spy and otherwise. Let the Chinese take the heat for claiming extraterrestrial resources and then private enterprise can reap the benefit. If an Australian mining company were to make the same attempt, Beijing and its lackies at the UN (and their useful idiots among the anti-free market left in the west) would raise holy hell. If Beijing does it, then it will be deemed okay — and that’s what we, as free people, should want.

And to this day, Alaska’s economy gets some of the biggest subsidies from the federal government… because life there is expensive and almost no one wants to live there. (Biggest state by land. Fourth smallest by population, and lots of those are natives.) Woo, we get a modest amount of oil. And salmon. I care more about the salmon.

While I believe that opening Mars to human settlement should be the central goal of the American space program, I have to say that the kind of thinking that prediscounts the military utility of the Moon is comparable to that which pooh-poohed the value of naval aviation.

Boy, that Billy Mitchell proved to be such a crank. How zany, the very idea of airplanes defeating battleships. Now really!

There are any number of ways that military installations on the Moon might prove to be a decisive value in achieving a crushing victory in a terrestrial conflict.

If you want to get some grasp of this, just look up and think. Allowing adversarial batteries on the Moon would be equivalent to having foreign bombers on permanent patrol over the continental United States.